


Soft Metal

by MagalaBee



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 23:54:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20825903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagalaBee/pseuds/MagalaBee
Summary: He gave her his ring when she was only twelve. A simple band of etched gold that didn't fit her properly.





	Soft Metal

**Author's Note:**

> This drabble is inspired by the wonderful artist Emmy (https://twitter.com/chickenbabby) who speculated this prompt. Please go support her work!!!

Glenn pressed the antique, gold ring into the palm of her hand when he was sixteen. He had smiled as he did so, valiant as he postured himself on one knee, despite the contract that their parents had signed when she was only two weeks old. 

“I know it’s a bit big on your hand now... but you’ll grow into it,” Glenn had assured her with a reassuring smile. He tried to slip the gold band onto her ring finger, but it was loose and would have fallen off in a moment. So Ingrid curled her palm around it and settled for holding the ring close to her heart.

She was twelve, and Glenn was everything to her. He had taught her how to fight, he wrote her letters from time to time, to keep their friendship alive. When he offered her the old Fraldarius ring-- a ring his grandmother once wore, and almost every Duchess before her-- Ingrid felt her destiny falling into place. 

He was her purpose, she knew it in her heart.

“I’ll keep it safe,” she had promised, holding her clenched fist, the ring inside, to her chest.

* * *

She had started wearing the ring on her thumb, since it could fit her larger knuckle with ease. Idly turning and playing with the band when she was bored. The old metal was etched with old Fodlan runes, reciting the Fraldarius house motto on it.

_To shield all of the Goddess’s creations._

Ingrid traced those words over and over for two years before the rest of her hand had grown to fit the size. It felt cruel, to her, that it wasn’t until after his death that she could finally wear his ring properly. But as she pulled it off of her thumb, Ingrid noticed that its shape had changed.

The once perfectly round band of gold had grown warped into a slightly oblong oval that perfectly traced the perimeter of her thumb. The gold had warmed against her skin and it had shifted.

Ingrid examined it slowly before she slipped it over her ring finger. The metal felt strange, trying to fit the ever-so-slightly-off band around her finger. It didn’t quite feel like it fit her properly, but she left it there anyway.

“It’s like you’re here with me,” she muttered to the ring that wouldn’t answer back. She traced the old runes again, this time with her thumb, turning the ring along her finger as she did.

“I miss you.”

* * *

Glenn’s ring became her defense. Worn on her hand, as it had always been meant to, she looked like a girl already spoken for. The suitors her father tried to introduce her to at any opportunity were often confused by the golden band around her finger, and Ingrid liked that.

It set them off-guard. Made them wonder. The mystery made her undefinable to them.

In the academy, though, the ring earned her odd looks. Seventeen by then, it wasn’t too outlandish for other students to think she was already married. Those with arranged matches were often wed young. And a crest-bearing noble daughter was something to be sought after.

Ingrid didn’t like it when other girls asked her who her betrothed was. She wasn’t married, and she didn’t want to be. Not now. Maybe not ever.

The purpose Glenn had given her wasn’t to be his wife. It was to be his legacy.

She still traced the carved runes with her thumb, turning and toying with the ring so much that it had changed its shape again. The crooked circle had molded to trace her finger by now, and the runic letters were slightly tarnished from the way she rubbed it so often.

Fed by anxiety, she turned it over and over. Studying for each exam, preparing for each battle.

“Wish me luck,” she would whisper to ring, as if he could still hear her.

* * *

Ingid didn’t think about her ring during the war. For five years, she fought, and that golden band came into the field with her every time. Hidden beneath gauntlets and glove armor, hardly anyone saw it anymore. Even she forgot it was there sometimes.

But the closer they came to victory, Ingrid began to think on it more and more.

Once upon a time, her destiny had been to be Glenn’s wife. In her mind, she changed this destiny to be part of his memory and what he’d left behind. 

She didn’t know what she wanted anymore. Destiny wasn’t real anymore, and neither was everything she had grown up believing.

“...Are you proud of me?” she whispered into the wind, on the eve of the final siege. Without her armor on, she could look down at the gold ring. It was tarnishing. It had been a long time since she’d cleaned it properly.

“I don’t know what will be left for me at the end.”

* * *

When Ingrid found a new destiny, she wore more than just Glenn’s ring. The golden band was steadfast as ever, but it had two neighbors. One was on her middle finger, wrought in silver and molded into the shape of a lion’s maw, teeth barred and onyx eyes glinting. It was the ring of the Faerghus King’s Guard.

The other was a pale shade of white gold. It didn’t have any house words etched along its curve, but it was simple and stately and suited her well. The perfect circle fit up against Glenn’s ring awkwardly. She had been wearing the Fraldarius ring for so many years that any new band felt awkward on her skin. 

The new one hadn’t been slowly molded into her hand. It hadn’t bent its shape to fit the rounds and flats of her fingers to hug her calluses perfectly.

“It’ll get there,” she chuckled to her ring one morning, when the dappled light snuck in through the curtains. Her husband was still asleep, giving Ingrid a few moments to herself. She sat in the window and admired her rings.

They were all part of her purpose now, each a part of her heart.

“Just be patient,” she brought her hand up to gently kiss her lips against the two gold bands who were still learning how to fit together. “He’s my new destiny... but I’ll always take you with me.”


End file.
